I'll write another post later to catch up on those two years, but I wanted to dip my toe in the water to see if I want to start blogging regularly again by posting this little activity of ours:
I call it Summer Adventures.
We did this last year, too. We take one day a week (Thursday) and we go on an "adventure." We've actually been doing some form of this since J was little, but it's sort of a formal thing now. Last year each adventure day we went in a specific direction and ended up exploring several nearby towns. This year we're being thematic.
Wednesday night we watched the movie "Tangled." Very enjoyable! One of the characters was a chameleon named Pascal. He, like all storybook chameleons, blended very artfully into several backgrounds. After J went to bed I quickly printed out six line drawings of a chameleon and cut them out. I also traced one onto a sheet protector so it would be see-through.
The next morning we boxed up our snacks and beverages, the white chameleon cutouts, the clear chameleon, and lots of crayons. We stopped off at the library for a couple of chameleon books, went for a short walk on a nearby trail (mosquitos made it short!), played in two playgrounds, ate lunch in the country, and finished off with our first Creemee of the season. The chameleon was going to participate in his own way.
There weren't any older kid books on the subject, so we got a smidgeon of info from this book:
We discovered that the fairy tales and the kid books have lied to us! Chameleons change color because of anger, fear, and temperature, not because of surroundings! After the shock wore off, we decided we were still going to pretend like the fairy tales and kid books were right. Otherwise, my whole plan was out the window!
Besides, our chameleon (Chamee for short) was all ready to go!
Chamee first blended with the shell of a little performance pavilion. We stayed on the outside while J quoted a bit of Shakespeare on the stage.
Chamee enjoyed sliding at the playground, sure, but solid green wasn't much of a challenge. He was ready for some advanced camouflage activity.
The birch tree and the railroad sign provided more creativity potential than the solid colors, but still not the challenge Chamee was looking for. That came at the finale--the creemee stand. Chamee geared himself up for the ultimate camouflage: hiding on the giant ice cream cone out front.
Invisible Chamee had a floral moment during the walk, but it just wasn't the same.
It was a beautiful day and we (all 3 ) had a lovely time. We learned a bit about chameleons and a bit of art instruction in making the "blending" happen. A great first Adventure Day.
I wonder what I will come up with for next week?
No comments:
Post a Comment